Story of Change
How STITCH contributed towards industry alignment on responsible purchasing practices
The global garment industry operates within a highly competitive landscape, where brands and retailers strive to lower costs and accelerate production. However, there is growing recognition that purchasing practices significantly impact human rights and environmental conditions in supply chains.
To promote uptake of responsible purchasing practices at scale, the Working Group on Responsible Purchasing Practices formed. This coalition includes multi-stakeholder initiatives the Ethical Trading Initiative, Ethical Trade Norway, Fair Wear, the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (PST), Ethical Trade Denmark, the Fair Labor Association and NGO Solidaridad. The Group actively collaborates with the manufacturer collective Sustainable Terms of Trade Initiative (STTI).
The Working Group (RPP WG) has delivered key outputs and interventions such as the Common Framework for Responsible Purchasing Practices, a learning and implementation community, an online resource hub, advocacy towards policy makers and the (draft) Purchasing Practices HRDD Framework. Together, these complementary interventions contribute to an ecosystem of approaches and tools fostering a more equitable and sustainable approach to purchasing.
This Story of Change reflects the journey that brought us here—the milestones, challenges, and collaborations that have shaped our collective work on RPP.
Why purchasing practices matter
Responsible purchasing practices are increasingly seen as crucial for a fair and sustainable textile industry. Various regulations, such as the OECD Due Diligence Guidance, the German Supply Chain Act, and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, emphasise the need for companies to review and improve their own purchasing practices to ensure they are not causing or contributing to adverse working conditions and wage issues in the supply chain.
Purchasing practices encompass all actions taken by brands to procure products, including design, forecasting, planning and ordering, contract negotiations, and payment terms. Research by the ILO, ETI, Fair Wear, and the Better Buying Institute* confirm that poor purchasing practices – such as pricing below the cost of responsible production, last-minute order changes and delayed payments – lead to excessive overtime, low wages, and financial instability for suppliers. The COVID-19 pandemic worsened these conditions, with many brands engaging in unfair practices like order cancellations and non-payments.
STITCH partners recognised that improving purchasing practices was essential for achieving meaningful change in supply chains. For this reason, STITCH co-funded activities of the RPP WG to promote industry alignment on this key topic. The RPP WG initiated and delivered the development of the CFRPP as a key output, with the active support of all the members of the group, including STITCH partners ETI and Fair Wear, enabling a collective industry approach to responsible purchasing.
*Joint ETI's Guide to Buying Responsibly / Survey carried out by the University of Aberdeen and trade justice charity Transform Trade, reported in the study ‘Impact of Global Clothing Retailers’ Unfair Practices on Bangladeshi Suppliers During COVID-19’ / Results of annual Better Buying Institute Surveys / Research carried out in 2020-2021 / ILO INWORK Issue Brief No 10. Purchasing practices and working conditions in global supply chains: Global Survey results. Accessed here. / Kuruvilla, Sarosh. Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains: Problems, Progress, and Prospects. Cornell University Press, 2021. P238 & Chapter 8. Accessed here.
“[Directors of a number of MSIs] all agreed on the need for stronger alignment of our work and concepts. We all felt that it was high time for a common language on responsible purchasing practices.”
– Lisa Süss, Fair Wear
Creating a common language:
How the CFRPP came to life
Lack of alignment across approaches to responsible purchasing practices has posed significant challenges. Without a unified direction, brands have faced inconsistent and, at times, conflicting expectations, making it difficult to implement meaningful and lasting progress across their operations.
A coordinated approach will not only drive improvements within individual organisations but also contribute to a broader transformation of global supply chains. By creating a shared understanding of what responsible purchasing looks like, we can ensure sustainable, ethical, and fair outcomes for all stakeholders involved.
Recognising this, STITCH partners Fair Wear and ETI worked together with ET Norway and The German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (PST) to develop a unified framework; the Common Framework for Responsible Purchasing Practices.
“We wanted a very clear focus on the behaviour and practices of purchasing companies. By limiting the focus of the framework in this way, we aimed to avoid the frequent deflection from the challenging subject of RPP.”
– Elisa Shepherd, ETI
The group conducted extensive benchmarking of existing RPP resources and engaged with organisations like ILO Better Work, Better Buying Institute, ACT and Amfori to learn from their experience.
This process led to the formulation of five core principles for responsible purchasing:
Integration and reporting: Embedding responsible purchasing into company leadership and internal processes.
Equal partnership: Fostering mutual respect and shared responsibility between brands and suppliers.
Collaborative production planning: Ensuring planning decisions are made jointly and fairly.
Fair payment terms: Establishing transparent, timely payment agreements that do not disadvantage suppliers.
Sustainable costing: Covering production costs adequately, supporting wage increases and sustainable production.
The RPP WG also incorporated insights from supplier organisations, with the STTI as a key partner. This ensured that the CFRPP addressed the realities faced by manufacturers, further strengthening its relevance.
“The Working Group strongly felt that including the manufacturers’ perspective on brand behaviour and aligning wording, was important to create clear expectations for brands and thus enhance the potential impact of our Framework.”
– Margreet Vrieling, Fair Wear
To ensure the framework truly reflected the needs and realities of the industry, 34 organisations participated in a public stakeholder consultation, offering detailed suggestions and proposals on the framework’s language, scope, and purpose.
By July 2022, the refined CFRPP was ready for its official launch—a testament to the power of collaboration and collective commitment to responsible purchasing practices.
Learning and Implementation Community: Applying the framework principles in practice
Following its launch, the CFRPP quickly gained traction across the garment and footwear industry, with other organisations referring to and engaging with it. The challenge lay in turning its principles into tangible actions that could be applied in the complex realities of global supply chains. To bridge this gap, the RPP WG, including STITCH partners, established the Learning and Implementation Community (LIC)*, a peer-learning group where brands collaborated with suppliers and experts to apply the principles of the framework in real-world scenarios.
* The LIC was funded by the Initiative for Global Solidarity (IGS) implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH (supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) and STITCH. The LIC ran for 2 years (2022-2024).
Led by the RPP WG, in close partnership with STTI, the LIC engaged with small and medium-sized enterprises as well as large retailers. This community gathered to dive into practical topics like building partnerships with suppliers, collaborative production planning, payment terms and costing. Crucially, supply chain partners and manufacturers actively participated, fostering dialogue and shared solutions. By the LIC's mid-point, progress was evident. Brands reported real advancements in embedding responsible purchasing principles, particularly in their relationships with suppliers and their production planning strategies. To support wider industry adoption, the LIC also developed publicly available tools.
The LIC's two-year journey shows the power of collaboration. It demonstrated that when brands, suppliers, and stakeholders come together with shared purpose, meaningful progress is possible—not only for individual businesses but for entire industries.
Expanding influence and aligning the industry
Since its launch, the CFRPP has been adopted and integrated across various initiatives, demonstrating its growing influence and practical application.
All the MSIs participating in the RPP WG have actively incorporated the lessons from this collaboration into their own tools and systems. For example, STITCH partner ETI has facilitated RPP awareness workshops in manufacturing hubs like Bangladesh and India, engaging suppliers, trade union leaders, and industry stakeholders. Fair Wear, whose mechanisms already reflected many of the CFRPP principles, took further steps to embed learnings and resources coming out of the WG. The Fair Labor Association, which joined the WG in early 2024, has also been instrumental in expanding the reach and impact of the CFRPP.
ETI RPP awareness raising session in Bangladesh with brand representatives
Additionally, major industry player Cascale has integrated the CFRPP principles into their Higg Brand & Retail Module, a tool used by over 500 brands to assess sustainability practices. The Better Buying Institute is currently aligning its supplier survey methodology with the CFRPP to strengthen synergies.
The framework has also been referenced in the Dutch introduction memo outlining the transposition of the CSDDD into Dutch law, further underscoring its relevance in policy discussions.
These efforts have significantly contributed to a shared understanding of responsible purchasing practices across the industry and have laid the groundwork for collective action and stronger collaboration between suppliers and brands.
The CFRPP’s influence has even extended beyond the textile sector. Organisations in the coffee, electronics and cacao industries have started referencing the framework to align purchasing practices within their own supply chains and STITCH partner ETI has released a Common Framework for Food.
“Increasingly we see references made in policy documents to the Common Framework, clearly showing how there is a growing acceptance of the Framework as the key reference document for RPP.”
– Tamar Hoek, Solidaridad
Advocating for industry accountability: The Purchasing Practices HRDD Framework
After successfully establishing a common language and applying the Common Framework in practice, the WG identified a need to link this work to the broader HRDD discourse. This aimed to provide accountability bodies—often lacking technical or sector-specific expertise—with a clear and aligned understanding of the requirements for purchasing companies regarding RPP.
The LIC emphasised that RPP cannot follow a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, purchasing companies must adopt an HRDD approach, collaborating with supply chain partners to understand the impacts of their practices and working together to mitigate risks.
In response, the WG released the draft Purchasing Practices HRDD Framework in 2025, offering targeted recommendations to key actors such as policymakers, regulators, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and investors, to hold purchasing companies accountable for responsible business conduct. The framework outlines core requirements for purchasing companies, ensuring their purchasing practices are informed by international HRDD standards: the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (OECD Guidelines).
Following wide consultation, an Initial PP-DD Framework Release has been shared, subject to further refinement.
What’s next? Ensuring lasting change
The STITCH partners remain dedicated to ensuring responsible purchasing practices become the norm for the garment industry, with the CFRPP and the PP-DD Framework serving as lasting reference points, along with practical resources facilitating their implementation. Moving forward, the RPP WG will:
Launch an open-access online resource hub, compiling LIC learnings and practical tools, and actively engage with their respective members to ensure uptake of better purchasing practices.
Continue developing the PP-DD Framework in consultation with stakeholders, planned for release in June 2025.
Develop companion documents with technical guidance for assessors on how to use the framework and for brands on how to implement the requirements.
Advocate for the widespread adoption of the CFRPP and Purchasing Practices HRDD Framework among regulators, investors, and retail associations.
“We have such rich information flowing from the LIC sessions, it makes sense to harness this for further learning so that companies which want to make a change in purchasing practices, have a place to go to support their journey.”
– Hilary Murdoch, Facilitator of the LIC
Key learnings from STITCH’s collaborative approach
Industry-wide collaboration is key. Bringing together diverse stakeholders– including brands, suppliers, unions, CSOs, expert organisations–created a shared understanding of responsible purchasing, helped consolidate complementary expertise and increased industry buy-in. In addition, collaboration ensured different needs were addressed through a joint solution.
Flexibility facilitates wider adoption. The CFRPP’s structure, with both non-negotiable overarching principles and actionable steps, allowed companies of different sizes and business models to engage and adopt the framework at their own pace.
Supplier voices matter. Direct engagement with manufacturers, through initiatives like STTI, ensured that supplier challenges were reflected in the framework, increasing its credibility and effectiveness. Presence of manufacturers in LIC ‘break-out discussions’ supported the development of practical ideas for action.
A common language drives accountability. By defining clear expectations for responsible purchasing, the CFRPP has become a reference for legislation, and industry-wide best practices.
Sustained efforts ensure lasting change. The development of a Purchasing Practices HRDD Framework and ongoing capacity-building initiatives highlight the need for continued collaboration to solidify the impact.
Conclusion
The CFRPP represents a groundbreaking achievement in industry-wide alignment on responsible purchasing practices. With STITCH partners playing an important role in its development, implementation, and advocacy, the framework is rapidly becoming the global reference for ethical purchasing. As industry adoption grows, STITCH remains committed to ensuring that brands integrate fair purchasing practices into their core business strategies, ultimately fostering more sustainable and equitable global supply chains.